Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Vol. 7 of The​ ​
Charles​ Dickens Library Edition, Chapter​ 36, "Tom Pinch Departs to Seek his Fortune.
What He finds at Starting," facing p. 592.​The narrative now shifts to the aftermath of
Pecksniff's discharging Tom Pinch, who sets out for London to find his sister, Ruth. She
is a little younger than her brother, and works as a
governess for the family of an
industrialist in Camberwell, a new suburb south of the Thames suitable for such a wealthy,
upper-middle class family. Treated with disrespect by her demanding employers, Ruth is
delighted when her brother gives the brass-and-copper founder a piece of his mind —
and her notice.

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Passage Illustrated

"When you tell me," resumed Tom, who was not the less indignant for
keeping himself quiet, "that my sister has no innate power of commanding the respect of
your children, I must tell you it is not so; and that she has. She is as well bred, as
well taught, as well qualified by nature to command respect, as any hirer of a governess
you know. But when you place her at a disadvantage in reference to every servant in your
house, how can you suppose, if you have the gift of common sense, that she is not in a
tenfold worse position in reference to your daughters?"

"It is very ill, sir," said Tom. "It is very bad and mean, and wrong and
cruel. Respect! I believe young people are quick enough to observe and imitate; and why
or how should they respect whom no one else respects, and everybody slights? And very
partial they must grow — oh, very partial! — to their studies, when they see
to what a pass proficiency in those same tasks has brought their governess! Respect! Put
anything the most deserving of respect before your daughters in the light in which you
place her, and you will bring it down as low, no matter what it is!"

"You speak with extreme impertinence, young man," observed the
gentleman.

"I speak without passion, but with extreme indignation and contempt for
such a course of treatment, and for all who practise it," said Tom. "Why, how can you, as
an honest gentleman, profess displeasure or surprise at your daughter telling my sister
she is something beggarly and humble, when you are for ever telling her the same thing
yourself in fifty plain, out-speaking ways, though not in words; and when your very
porter and footman make the same delicate announcement to all comers? As to your
suspicion and distrust of her: even of her word: if she is not above their reach, you
have no right to employ her."

"No right!" cried the brass-and-copper founder.

"Distinctly not," Tom answered. "If you imagine that the payment of an
annual sum of money gives it to you, you immensely exaggerate its power and value. Your
money is the least part of your bargain in such a case. You may be punctual in that to
half a second on the clock, and yet be Bankrupt. I have nothing more to say," said Tom,
much flushed and flustered, now that it was over, "except to crave permission to stand in
your garden until my sister is ready." — Chapter 36, "Tom Pinch Departs to Seek his
Fortune. What He finds at Starting," p. 594.

Commentary

​While Martin and Mark complete their American adventure by returning from
the malarial swamps of Eden, Tom Pinch sets out from the Wiltshire village where he has
served as Pecksniff's architectural apprentice. His destination is the
Camberwell district of Southwark,
south of the Thames, where his sister, Ruth, is a governess to the daughters of a wealthy
industrialist, although Furniss depicts but one child. Discovering that her sister's
employers are verbally abusive, demeaning in their attitude towards her, and unreasonable
in their demands upon his sister, this new, assertive Tom dares to give the captain of
industry a piece of his mind, and then to serve notice on his sister's behalf. Together
they leave the upper-middle-class mansion and take rooms in
Islington, where Ruth becomes a
model housekeeper, and Tom finds unexpected employment as the organizer and cataloguer
of a private library.

Although Fred Barnard in the Household Edition
illustration "No right!" cried
the brass-and-copper founder, attempted to realize the scene in which Tom
visits his sister at Camberwell and finds her much put-upon by her employer, Furniss's
version is much more dramatic, owing to his foregrounding the nouveau-riche
family and putting the departing Pinches in the background as Tom delivers a Parthian
shot. Ironically, despite its dramatic potential, Dickens's original illustrator,
Hablot Knight Browne, avoided the scene entirely,
showing Tom's departure from Wiltshire by coach and then the Pinches in their Islington
(village north of London) flat as John Westlock, formerly Tom's fellow apprentice and
Ruth's future husband, pays an unexpected call.

In the Barnard illustration, Tom wags an admonitory finger in the face of the
surprised, overfed bourgeois as the employer's ugly wife and daughter look on (right). In
the background, the fireplace and bric-a-brac on the mantelpiece establish the setting as
the family's parlour. In the Furniss, illustration, however, Furniss gives the reader a
"long shot" which reveals every indication of Victorian affluence: padded chairs, oil
paintings (including a study of a smoke-spewing factory, and a likeness of the founder),
an ornate clock, a bookcase, a fabric fireplace screen (which bears the image of Pomona,
Roman goddess of abundance, bearing a cornucopia of fruit and flowers), wainscoting,
carpets, and floor-to-ceiling drapery. The founder's indignation and his wife's hauteur
complement Tom's upright figure and determined departure, his closed fist indicative of
self-control under emotionally trying circumstances. Ruth, concerned, looks on from the
corridor. Furniss's handling of the materials given him by Barnard and Dickens is
masterful in its multiple characterisations and critique of the late 19th c. nouveau
riche.